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On the walls of any local used music shop there hangs a gallery of mysteries. Picked up and handed down across the decades, each instrument contains the imprints and stories of those who have played it before, most of which remain untold. For Kansas City-based songwriter Kelly Hunt the most intriguing of these stories is the origin of her anonymous calfskin tenor banjo. “I really wasn’t looking for it,” she says, “but I opened up the case and it said ‘This banjo was played by a man named Ira Tamm in his dog and pony show from 1920 to 1935.’ I strummed it and said ‘This is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.’ People often think of the banjo as being rather brash and tinny – loud and kind of grating – but this was so warm and mellow, with an almost harp-like quality to it, very soulful” – apt words for the Memphis native’s debut album, Even The Sparrow, coming out May 17 on Rare Bird Records.

The daughter of an opera singer and a saxophonist, Kelly Hunt was raised in Memphis, TN, and grew up performing other people’s works through piano lessons, singing in choirs, and performing theater. “It was a very creative, artistic household,” says Hunt. During her teenage years, influenced by musical inspirations as diverse as Norah Jones, Rachmaninov, and John Denver, she began writing her own songs on the piano as a creative outlet. After being introduced to the banjo in college while studying French and visual arts, Hunt began to develop her own improvised style of playing, combining old-time picking styles with the percussive origins of the instrument. “I’m self-taught, I just started letting the songs dictate what needed to be there,” she says. “I heard a rhythm in a song that I wanted to execute, so I figured out how to do it on the drum head while still being able to articulate certain notes in one motion.” After college, Hunt followed a rambling path that took her through careers in acting, graphic design, traditional French breadmaking, and medicine, all the while making music as a private endeavor. “I wanted to get serious about a responsible career choice, but music kept bubbling up. I was writing a lot and playing a lot and started to not be satisfied just playing to my walls of my room.”

After moving to Kansas City and discovering her mysterious Depression-era tenor banjo, Hunt began recording Even The Sparrow in Kansas City alongside collaborator Stas’ Heaney and engineer Kelly Werts. “It took almost two years to record,” she says, “learning how to let the songs dictate the production.” Having finally come to light, the album displays Hunt’s penchant for masterful storytelling and intriguing arrangement, as researched and complex as they are memorable, punctuated by her articulate melodies and a well-enunciated and creative command of lyrical delivery infused with deft emotional communication. While reminiscent of modern traditionalists such as Gillian Welch–a number of her songs even borrow titles and phrasing from traditional American music (“Back to Dixie,” “Gloryland”)–Even The Sparrow reveals an ineffable quality that hovers beyond the constraints of genre, à la Anais Mitchell and Patty Griffin. In “The Men of Blue & Grey,” what begins as a Reconstruction-era ballad about the repurposing of Civil War glass plate negatives in a greenhouse roof soon becomes a meditation on the hope that growth and life may one day be able to emerge from the ruins of suffering and haunting of violence. “Across The Great Divide” turns an otherwise traditional accounting of spurned love into a philosophical epic of the ethics of forgiveness and freedom, evoking the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard and Walt Whitman.

As for the original owner of Kelly Hunt’s mysterious tenor banjo, not much is known. “I’ve never been able to find anything about Ira Tamm,” she says, “I think he just had a humble little traveling show.” What’s clear is that the itinerant performer laid down his banjo at the height of the Great Depression, almost eighty years before it would be picked up by Hunt. “That banjo has stories. I wish I knew them all,” says Hunt, though the banjo’s most intriguing story may just be beginning with Even The Sparrow. “The marks of Ira’s hands are still in the calfskin head, so I can see where he played and left his mark,” she says. “Now my own hand marks are there too, in different places, like a kind of portrait.”

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Bassist Mike Watt was the living embodiment of the punk rock spirit. As a founding member of the highly influential Minutemen, he created one of the most important bodies of work in the American underground canon, delivering adventurous, fiercely polemical music informed by such disparate traditions as funk, folk, and free jazz. Although his subsequent material — most notably his records with the trio  fIREHOSE , as well as his latter-day solo efforts — lacked the sheer impact of his earliest outings, Watt remained true to the D.I.Y. ethos that originally inspired him, emerging as one of the most highly respected figures in contemporary music.

Doors open at 6 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu. *General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.

 

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Doors open at 7 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.
*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.
*All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Vaneese is the daughter of Rufus Thomas, whose legendary career as a musician and entertainer began in Vaudeville and spanned more than half a century in rhythm-and-blues recording and radio. Her older siblings are the hit recording artist “Memphis Queen” Carla Thomas and the highly respected keyboardist and producer, Marvell Thomas. Embracing this remarkable musical legacy, Vaneese carries forward the rich heritage of Memphis soul and R&B, a music that has touched several generations and crossed many divides. At the same time she has combined all the influences of her background and experience – R & B, gospel, blues, and jazz – to cultivate a soul-stirring style that’s all her own. Her latest album due for release on August 23, 2019 is entitled ”Down Yonder.” On it she tells stories of her southern upbringing and issues that are both uplifting and disturbing. The music is the Blues and beyond, evoking the traditional blues genre and and what it can become.

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Doors open at 7 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.

*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.
**All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

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Doors open at 6 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.

*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.
**All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

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For nearly two decades, Shooter Jennings has defied expectation while constantly expanding the parameters of country, rock ‘n’ roll, and beyond. The scion of American music royalty, he has affirmed his own place in histories still to come as a truly limitless artist whose ambitious experimentation spans myriad genres and creative platforms, from releasing seven solo LPs, countless EPs, and founding his own label and multimedia outlet, Black Country Rock, to hosting his “Shooter Jennings’ Electric Rodeo” on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel, producing music by Jamey Johnson, Wanda Jackson, and his mom, Jessi Colter, and the creation of acclaimed BBS Door games (available via his own BCRGames.com).

Doors open at 6 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.

*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.
**All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

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Doors open at 6 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.

*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.
**All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

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Jason D. Williams has spent a lifetime behind the piano connecting with country and rock ‘n’ roll greats while creating a persona that’s 100 percent original. After decades of being celebrated for his take-no-prisoners approach to performing country and rock ‘n’ roll penned by others, Williams has added a new element to his artistry, songwriting.

 

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Contrary to what some might assume, Ingram Hill is not of the name of a solo artist but rather, a band; no one in Ingram Hill is actually named Ingram Hill (just like there was not a musician named Lynard Skynard or Jethro Tull).  The band has a refreshing, earthy, unpretentious approach that is relevant to both alternative pop/rock and roots rock. The Memphis-based threesome aren’t an exact replica of classic rockers from the ’60s and ’70s — their work is more modern — but they do have a certain down-home rootsiness that has gone over well in many music circles.  Though pridefully from the South, Ingram Hill doesn’t get into hell-raisin’ good ol’ boy stereotypes, and their lyrics tend to be reflective, introspective, and thoughtful.  They have toured extensively with bands such as Hootie and the Blowfish, Johnny Lang, Maroon 5, Gavin Degraw, Better Than Ezra, and Hanson.  Ingram Hill has released seven albums (two full-length albums on Hollywood Records) including 2004’s “June’s Picture Show,” which boasted two Billboard Top 25-charting Hot AC radio hits (“Will I Ever Make It Home” and “Almost Perfect”), and has continued to tour worldwide supporting these albums.

 

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Doors open at 6 pm. Join us for dinner and drinks before the show. Click here to view our menu.

*General Admission seats are first come, first serve Vegas-style. With Vegas-style seating, you will be seated with other guests.

**All sales are final. No refunds and or exchanges.

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Ring in 2020 at historic Lafayette’s Music Room on Tuesday, December 31. Live music by Pearl at 6:30 pm and Walrus at 10 pm. VIP Packages available and General Admission. Click here for tickets.

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Keller Williams released his first album in 1994, FREEK, and has since given each of his albums a single syllable title: BUZZ, SPUN, BREATHE, LOOP, LAUGH, HOME, DANCE, STAGE, GRASS, DREAM, TWELVE, LIVE, ODD, THIEF, KIDS, BASS, PICK, FUNK, VAPE, SYNC, RAW, SANS and Add, those who have followed his career will know this. Each title serves as a concise summation of the concept guiding each project. GRASS, for example, is a bluegrass recording cut with the husband-wife duo The Keels. STAGE is a live album, and DREAM is the realization of Keller’s wish to collaborate with some of his musical heroes. THIEF is a set of unexpected cover songs, KIDS offers Keller’s first children’s record, PICK presents Keller’s collaboration with royal bluegrass family The Travelin’ McCoury’s, andRAW is a solo acoustic album. Each album showcases Keller’s comprehensive and diverse musical endeavors and functions to provide another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is Keller Williams. Keller’s collaborative and solo albums reflect his pursuit to create music that sounds like nothing else. Unbeholden to conventionalism, he seamlessly crosses genre boundaries. The end product is astounding and novel music that encompasses rock, jazz, funk and bluegrass, and always keeps the audience on their feet.

Keller’s 2018 release, and first ever entirely-instrumental album, SANS (as in without), found him breathing new life into some of his favorite songs that were once presented as solo acoustic guitar pieces, enhancing them with bold acoustic bass and live and sampled drums, looped through futuristic soundscapes. The follow up, Add (2019), saw Williams simply adding vocals back into both new and previously unrecorded songs, as well as his own versions of “Brave Captain” by Firehose and Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want”.

Williams is set to release his 25^th studio album, SPEED, in the Fall of 2019, which sees him reunited with his Bluegrass outfit, Keller & The Keels, as they reinterpret popular songs by celebrated artists including The Doors, Kacey Musgraves, Fiona Apple, Weezer and more. SPEED is the trio’s third collaboration together and features a combination of originals and covers, performed in their trademark psychedelic Appalachian bluegrass style. Once again showcasing Williams’ masterful penchant for collaboration and innovation, SPEED proves he’s not planning to slow down any time soon.

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, OCT. 11 AT 10 AM CST